Nintendo brought a pair of games with them to San Diego Comic-Con 2026. Demos of Splatoon Raiders and Switch Sports Resort were available for playa at a beach-themed activation held at a bayfront hotel next to the San Diego Convention Center.
Splatoon Raiders is a bit of a change from the previous games in the series. You’re still slinging ink, though, and have the ability to switch to squid form to traverse the pools of ink that you leave behind. However, Raiders, as its name implies, takes the gameplay in the looter-shooter direction. The demo began on a dock that serves as your base. From here you can select your primary weapon, two auxiliary gadgets, and an ultimate. For my ultimate I selected the shark attack because, you know, sharks. There looked to be a lot of room for customization here, and the opportunity to tailor your build to your preferred playstyle or the type of mission that you’ll be undertaking.
Once you’re geared-up, you peruse the map to pick a raid location based on the type of reward and difficulty level you’re interested in at the moment. I had enough time with the demo to try out a couple of raids, and while each had their own unique challenges they both did follow the same general pattern. The raid levels I played were essentially a series of small interconnected islands. Each island was the setting for an arena style battle featuring a small hoard of Salmonids or a boss-like big one. Survive the battle, grab the loot, play through a little traversal challenge to reach the next zone, and repeat. The two levels I played were challenging and fun, and I can see that the game seems to have captured that upgrade reward loop that can make looter shooters so addicting. The demo host let me know that the game will include other level types and even dungeons, and that while you can certainly play the game solo, it also supports co-op play with up to four players.
Nintendo Switch Sports Resort marks the welcome return of the casual sports games with motion controls that were so much fun when the Wii console debuted. By the end of that console’s lifecycle, the motion sports thing had been a bit overdone and led to a bit of player burnout on the whole concept, but playing through the four sports available in the demo did remind me why these types of games were so much fun to play when they first appeared on the scene.
The first game I played was archery. You hold one Joy-Con with your arm stretched out in front of you as if you are gripping a bow. You then hold the other Joy-Con next to the first and draw it back like you would a bowstring. You then use the first Joy-Con to aim your shot, taking the wind and distance to the target into account. Release the trigger when you’re ready and your arrow will fly towards the target.
Next up was bowling, but this variant of the sport featured 100 pins instead of the usually ten. To roll the ball, you go through the motions you would while actually bowling. When you bring your arm forward after the backswing, you release the trigger when you’re ready to release the ball and can twist the Joy-Con leading to the release in order to put spin on the ball. It’s certainly satisfying to watch 100 pins toppling into each other, but you can also find yourself facing some intimidating splits. This is a full 10 frame game of bowling, so you’ll rack up some pretty massive scores.
I then moved on to jet ski racing. To control the jet ski, the Joy-Cons are held out in front of you as if you’re holding on to the handlebars and use a trigger as the throttle. You can also give yourself a little speed boost by pulling back on both handles at once. The racing was fun as you not only had to contend with the course layout and your opponent, but the waves that rolled over the surface of the water.
Last up was thumb wrestling. This is played with a single Joy-Con, held upright in your hand basically along your thumb. The on-screen thumb is moved by moving the Joy-Con and the trigger will slap your virtual thumb down. The match I played mimicked the real “sport” with players trying to tease each other into over committing and then trapping their opponent instead.
And that’s a wrap on Nintendo at SDCC. By the time you read this Splatoon Raiders will be available for you to play yourself, and Nintendo Switch Sports Resort will follow in October.